Ethiopia will on Wednesday launch Africa’s first modern electrified railway line.
Built by China, the rail line links the Ethiopian capital , Addis Ababa with the port of Djibouti.
The full length of the railway is 752.7 kilometers, with a designed speed of 120 km per hour.
With a total investment of 4 billion U.S.
dollars, it is was built by China Railway Group and the China Civil
Engineering Construction Corporation.
“The railway is constructed on the basis
of Chinese railway technology standards while taking into account the
national conditions of Ethiopia and Djibouti,” said Zeng Deli, a project
manager of the China Railway Group, to Xinhua.
It was designed and constructed in a most
economical way, taking only six years for its final completion, which
should be viewed as some kind of miracle even in China, Zeng said.
The modern standard-gauge Addis
Ababa-Djibouti railway runs parallel to a decrepit meter-gauge version
built over 100 years ago by Europeans.
Over 90 percent of Ethiopia’s imports and exports, in particular energy and food, are made via the sea port of Djibouti.
The capacity of the current road system has long been overwhelmed.
When the new railway becomes operational,
transport time from Djibouti to the Ethiopian capital will be reduced
from 7 days to ten hours.
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